Editorials
‘Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin’ – That Wild Ending and Where the Franchise Could Go Next
Warning: Spoilers for Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin ahead…
Next of Kin seems to be getting thrashed equally between critics and audiences. Personally, I felt like while the first two acts were uneven and a bit slow, the final act unleashed one of the most thought provoking and bat shit sequences of the entire series.
Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin could be getting the Wrong Turn treatment by fans who expected another entry in the original Paranormal Activity storyline. It could also be due simply to a strange lack of marketing by Paramount and Blumhouse.
There was very little fanfare or marketing leading up to this installment in the popular franchise. Which leads me to wonder if we’ll get a sequel at all. But if we do?
Let’s talk about where the franchise could go after that ending…
THAT ENDING
At the end of Next of Kin we learn the demon Asmodeus was being kept inside of Sarah (Margot’s Mom), whose body was the only thing keeping the demon from wreaking havoc on the village. Legend has it the demon, if released, would take control of everyone in the village and cause them to inflict violence on each other until they were all dead. It seems as though Sarah was becoming weak and the demon was beginning to fully take over her body. Enter Margot, the planned next vessel for the demon.
The way I saw it, the scary boob monster we encounter in the cave is aesthetically a mix between the now weakened Sarah and Asmodeus. He’s almost taken complete control of her. When Margot gives her the hook of death and she gets all gooey on the machinery, Asmodeus is fully released. Which is why you immediately start to hear the townsfolk screaming in agony as they murder each other like a bunch of trust fund babies at a Fyrefest festival (had it gone on for seven to twelve more minutes).
What a scene that was! Margot and Chris head back to the van. On their way, in an almost found footage tracking shot (if that’s a thing), they encounter a man with no eyeballs laughing, a man on fire pretending to be a scarecrow, and overall general mayhem. Lucky for them, they’ve clearly been to a Black Friday event at Walmart and are capable of maneuvering their way out.They finally get the van started and out of goddamn nowhere like Sting from the rafters, a guy with a shotgun was waiting on the other side of the barn. They somehow escape all this, Margot does her best Texas Chainsaw Massacre scream impression, and we’re on the road again.
Meanwhile, in a great series of cinematic shots a cop car pulls into the farm. Something about the first person bodycam and the falling snow mixing with the red and blue lights was just impressive as hell. The cop goes into the barn and encounters the new Asmodeus…..it’s Samuel! The weird cousin! Shirtless and in full on naked Terminator pose (though he has thankfully chosen to keep his pants on), making creepy ass baby noises. He’s been born into the word and we’re all in deep shit.
Samodeus reveals himself to the police officer and with a single look, the officer (while we’re still in first person view) takes the gun and shoots himself in the head. It’s disconcerting. Another officer is treated to the same demise with a simple look from Samodeus before he gets in the police car and calmly drives off. Not before changing the radio station to some Loretta Lynn. Which was a strange but neat touch.
What does this all mean? Well, I think it means that we’re all gonna die. But first, I wonder if he’s just escaping to find the next town, village, city to destroy? Or is he specifically inclined to follow Margot and Chris so that he may kill her and therefore destroy the only thing that could suppress his powers? Now that he’s been born into the world again, is she even able to get him back in there? You wouldn’t think so but hasn’t all of this happened before?
Imagine if Margot and Chris get to safety and read about the police officers that perished. Margot could realize that the Wild N’ Crazy Cult of Demonology was right all along. She realizes she’s the only one who can end this. But first, she has to figure out how all this shit works right? And the whole village and anyone who knows how to stop him is likely dead.
FOLLOW UP POSSIBILITIES
The way I see it we essentially we have five options for a follow up in this storyline:
1- Asmodeus goes on a Terminator style hunt down of Margot and Chris. Either because there is a way for her to suppress him or because he’s just pissed off that they got away.
2– Margot feels responsible and goes on a hunt to find out how to destroy Asmodeus while he’s out murdering from town to town but first has to find a cult member who’s still alive to help.
3- We move on to a completely different set of people who Asmodeus wonders upon as they try to survive him. You could get crafty with this and have him inflict his will upon another esoteric special interest group to keep the story contained. You could even tie this into idea number two and have her show up at the end.
4- We go completely wild and turn Next of Kin 2 into an all out found footage disaster film with Asmodeus wreaking havoc on the entire world. Think Chronicle; the footage is all filmed through news cameras and cell phone feeds of him causing us full on carnage and mayhem as we collectively as the human race try and stop him. Imagine the wild ending of Next of Kin taking place in a highly populated city?
Alas, number five with a bullet. I know many of you who aren’t a fan of these deep franchise sequels will enjoy this. Hell, many of you will have already commented it below before you even get to this point in the article. The last option for the Paranormal Activity franchise is for them to do absolutely nothing. They could completely leave the franchise alone and not make a sequel at all. It actually works from a story aspect and feels like the ending of the original Halloween (or at least Carpenter’s intended ending). The monster survived and he’s out there amongst us. The end.
What would you all like to see done with the franchise at this point?
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
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